watched the drama unfold outside the Mastiff’s windshield. But he needed to establish what was riling his camouflaged colleagues, so pulled a pair of night vision binoculars from the dash and jammed the onto his faceplate.
His vista turned to a speckled green fog. In the foreground the soldiers remained with their backs to him, all attention drawn to a flare of lights several hundred metres ahead.
Vehicles. Lots of them. A mechanized armada moving towards them and at speed.
The more vehicles that came into view the more Kunaka was drawn to the portentous words of Grandpa Joe, words of storms and devils and hunger. This wasn’t so much an armada as an exodus. The superstition of his childhood threatened to settle on him like a huge, hungry parasite, feeding on rational thought; he fought against it, and drove it back into the deep rooted darkness, where, for now, it sat brooding, waiting for its time in the light.
Then, from the Challenger, a bull horn ripped through the night.
“ Attention, oncoming vehicles! You are ordered to pull over immediately! This is your last warning! We are authorized to use deadly force ! We will fire upon you! Repeat, we will fire upon you!”
Deadly force. No-one was getting out of the city; that was crystal. In the dark, the parasite threatened to stir but the sudden, staccato sound of a high caliber machine gun rippled through Kunaka’s thoughts, he looked up and watched the Challenger’s co-axial chain gun pumping 4,000 rounds per minute down the street, an incongruous sight, a terrible sight, a signal that the world had suddenly changed.
Through his binoculars, Kunaka observed the Challenger’s target - a large articulated Eddie Stobart truck - come apart, it’s front grill peeling back in a series of bright flashes, its front tires shredding, pulling it sharply to the right and into a row of terraced houses. Through the binoculars, it seemed as though all this were happening elsewhere. The Stobart wagon rolled once, metal and canvas flapping, then ploughed into the houses with a dreadful, distant crash. There was a small explosion as a gas main ruptured, a fiery plume blossoming skywards. The roar of the explosion followed shortly afterwards, dull and final.
“ Stu?” Not Grandpa Joe this time, it was O’Connell’s voice in his ear. “What the hell’s happening?”
Stu told him.
Small arms fire now, peppering the night. Nothing was stopping this exodus, Stu was now certain of this. So, it seemed, were the troops at the barricade.
“ 120 mm!” the Corporal yelled. “Put a hole in the road! Slow 'em down, for Christ’s sake!”
He can see more than the armada slipping away into the night , Stu thought. He can see his stripes going with them. Desperation’s driving this man and nothing good will come of it.
Smoke from the burning buildings drifted across the road, a thick black mass in the viewfinder. All the time Kunaka tried to fight off the memory of the Kingston storm clouds. Without warning the dense smoke parted. Waved aside by a larger, denser mass. Another wagon, big - though not like the Eddie Stobart truck - but towing a long thick cylinder.
“ Oh, Jesus,” Kunaka breathed and instinct had him slamming the Mastiff into reverse, accelerating with such velocity the truck wavered slightly in the road. He used his mirrors to ensure he didn’t collide with parked cars. He used the windscreen to make sure he was putting enough distance between the Mastiff and the inevitable.
The Corporal screamed for the Challenger to hold its fire, but the muzzle barked, spitting a 120mm armour-piercing shell into the cabin of the oncoming truck.
The oncoming petrol tanker .
The conflagration was big, the cabin obliterated, the container punctured and igniting 3000 gallons of unleaded petrol that came as a burning, blistering wave, consuming all it touched, causing Kunaka to close his eyes for a second.
Troops ran, flames licking at their clothes, the masks melting to
His vista turned to a speckled green fog. In the foreground the soldiers remained with their backs to him, all attention drawn to a flare of lights several hundred metres ahead.
Vehicles. Lots of them. A mechanized armada moving towards them and at speed.
The more vehicles that came into view the more Kunaka was drawn to the portentous words of Grandpa Joe, words of storms and devils and hunger. This wasn’t so much an armada as an exodus. The superstition of his childhood threatened to settle on him like a huge, hungry parasite, feeding on rational thought; he fought against it, and drove it back into the deep rooted darkness, where, for now, it sat brooding, waiting for its time in the light.
Then, from the Challenger, a bull horn ripped through the night.
“ Attention, oncoming vehicles! You are ordered to pull over immediately! This is your last warning! We are authorized to use deadly force ! We will fire upon you! Repeat, we will fire upon you!”
Deadly force. No-one was getting out of the city; that was crystal. In the dark, the parasite threatened to stir but the sudden, staccato sound of a high caliber machine gun rippled through Kunaka’s thoughts, he looked up and watched the Challenger’s co-axial chain gun pumping 4,000 rounds per minute down the street, an incongruous sight, a terrible sight, a signal that the world had suddenly changed.
Through his binoculars, Kunaka observed the Challenger’s target - a large articulated Eddie Stobart truck - come apart, it’s front grill peeling back in a series of bright flashes, its front tires shredding, pulling it sharply to the right and into a row of terraced houses. Through the binoculars, it seemed as though all this were happening elsewhere. The Stobart wagon rolled once, metal and canvas flapping, then ploughed into the houses with a dreadful, distant crash. There was a small explosion as a gas main ruptured, a fiery plume blossoming skywards. The roar of the explosion followed shortly afterwards, dull and final.
“ Stu?” Not Grandpa Joe this time, it was O’Connell’s voice in his ear. “What the hell’s happening?”
Stu told him.
Small arms fire now, peppering the night. Nothing was stopping this exodus, Stu was now certain of this. So, it seemed, were the troops at the barricade.
“ 120 mm!” the Corporal yelled. “Put a hole in the road! Slow 'em down, for Christ’s sake!”
He can see more than the armada slipping away into the night , Stu thought. He can see his stripes going with them. Desperation’s driving this man and nothing good will come of it.
Smoke from the burning buildings drifted across the road, a thick black mass in the viewfinder. All the time Kunaka tried to fight off the memory of the Kingston storm clouds. Without warning the dense smoke parted. Waved aside by a larger, denser mass. Another wagon, big - though not like the Eddie Stobart truck - but towing a long thick cylinder.
“ Oh, Jesus,” Kunaka breathed and instinct had him slamming the Mastiff into reverse, accelerating with such velocity the truck wavered slightly in the road. He used his mirrors to ensure he didn’t collide with parked cars. He used the windscreen to make sure he was putting enough distance between the Mastiff and the inevitable.
The Corporal screamed for the Challenger to hold its fire, but the muzzle barked, spitting a 120mm armour-piercing shell into the cabin of the oncoming truck.
The oncoming petrol tanker .
The conflagration was big, the cabin obliterated, the container punctured and igniting 3000 gallons of unleaded petrol that came as a burning, blistering wave, consuming all it touched, causing Kunaka to close his eyes for a second.
Troops ran, flames licking at their clothes, the masks melting to
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